! And v. 157. Ver. 1098. He concludes in thefe thirty verses, that the world grows old in the fame manner as animals do; that is to say, that the conduits and paffages in the world, which anfwer to the veins in animals, being impaired and weakened by the continual blows they meet with from external bodies, receive with great difficulty the matter that flows down out of the infinite void, and is proper to fupport and repair the world. And this mighty frame is extended fo far and wide, that it parts with more matter out of its substance, than it receives afresh from the void; and, therefore, must of neceffity diminish, grow feeble, and decay. The earth, as Epicurus held, produced formerly of her own accord, all kinds of animals, fruits, trees, &c. but we now find by experience, that she is past her teeming time; and, therefore, it cannot be denied but the now grows old. Ver. 1105. I affirm, fays the poet, that all thefe things did proceed from the earth: for animals were not let down from heaven, as the afferters of Providence pretend, by that chain, which none but one Homer ever faw: nor were they born of the fea, or from the waves that infult the fhores. But that very earth, which at this day feeds and nourishes all kinds of things, is the very fame earth that formerly brought them forth. Ver. 1108. Homer feigned that all things were let down from heaven to earth by a golden chain. Yet, if we may take Plato's word for it, Homer meant only the fun, and fhows that to be a chain of gold; becaufe, while the fun rolls round the univerfe and enlightens it, all things are fafely preferved, and live and flourish, as well as thofe that are among the gods, as in cur earthly abodes. But if the fun fhould ftand ftill, and ceafe from his revolution, as if he were bound in chains, all things muft of neceflity perifh. Macrobius on the dream of Scipio, will have that chain of Homer to be an uninterrupted connection of caufes, that bind themselves together by mutual bands, even from the Supreme God to the laft dregs of matter. "Cumque omnia continuis fucceffionibus fe fequantur, degenerantia per ordinem ad imum meandi; invenietur preffius intuenti à fummo Deo ufque ad ultimam rerum fœcem una mutuis fe vinculis religans, & nufquam interrupta connexio : & hæc eft Homeri carena aurere, quam pendere de cœlo in terras Deum juffiffe commemorat." Macrob. in Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. 44. Ver. IIII. Thus too Ovid, Metamorph. i. ver. ΤΟΙ Ipfa quoque, immunis raftroque intacta, nec ullis Saucia vomeribus, per fe dabat omnia Tellus. Ver erat æternum, placidique tepentibus aur The teeming earth, yet guiltlefs of the plough, Dryd. To which I fubjoin these incomparable verses of the fame poet, in his tranflation of the fourth ec logue of Virgil: Unlabour'd harvests did the fields adorn, And clufter'd grapes then blush'd on ev'ry thorn: The knotted oak did fhow'rs of honey weep, And through the matted grafs the liquid gold did creep. Ver. 1115. The earth is become fo barren, that though we provoke her by conftant tillage, even till we weary our oxen, and wear out our peafants with continual labour, yet the ungrateful foil deludes the hopes of the tiller, and produces not the crop he had reason to expect from his toil and induftry. An evident and convincing proof, that the earth is now grown old and worn out to that degree, that the can no longer bring forth as the did in her youthful years. Ver. 1121. The poet has fubjoined to the ar gument taken from the doctrine of Epicurus, the poetical fable of the Golden Age. But being je lous that men would afcribe the fertility of the earth in those days to the benevolence of the Dei. ty, and to the bounty and goodness of the gods to the pious men of that age, he feoffs at that opi nion, and defpifes their ignorance, who do not yet know that the earth is grown feeble and barren with old age. Ver. 1123. Because in the beginning of the world, men had nothing to do but to worship the gods: fince the earth then produced the fruits of its own accord, and they had no need to employ their time in tilling it. ANIMADVERSION, BY WAY OF RECAPITULATION, ON THE SECOND BOOK OF LUCRETIUS. In this book are deposited all the treasures of Epicurus; of no great value indeed; yet many of the 'ancients were continually pillaging them, till at length Tully entirely rifled and laid them wafle. Lucretius with great labour strove to renew and cstablish them again; but has met with the face efs he deferved: for it has fared with the doc- | which he endeavours to extricate himself from the trine of Epicurus, as with a child of a fickly race; though you cram it with the most nourishing and healthful food, it will at best be puny and infirm. From v. 68. to v. 82. the poet teaches, that there is motion, nor do we difown it. And that the motion of all things proceeds from the motion of the principles; and this too we grant. But when, v. 84. he afcribes weight to the feeds, and afferts that to be the caufe of their motion, he is too indulgent to himself and his atoms. Who can grant weight to all matter, and the same weight to bodies of the fame bulk? Senfe and certain experience cry out against it. But Epicu. ras had obferved, that stones, wood, in fhort, all things that are contained within the bounds of this world tend downwards; and, therefore, believed that all things had descended from all eternity; which opinion, whoever embraces, will indeed be "nitidiffimus de grege Epicuri Philofophus." He may as reasonably pretend, that the wheels, fprings, or any other of the members and parts of an engine, will do the same thing feparately, which they perform jointly. But, let us even grant this too. He prefents us in the next place with infinite atoms, tending downwards through an infinite void by just degrees, and with equal velocity. In the immenfity of the longitades, latitudes, and altitudes, an infinity of innumerable atoms are flying to and fro and these atoms overtaking, and laying hold of one another in the interjected void, cling and join together, and thus compofe all the forms and figures of things. But how came they to overtake and catch hold of one another, fince they all move with equal fwiftnefs? To this he answers, v. 210. and fays, they decline a little, even the least that can be. But even this declination is feigned at pleafure; for, as Cicero fays, 2 de Finib. "Ait declinare Atomos fine caufa, quo nihil turpuis eft Phyfico: & illum motum naturalem omnium ponderum, è regione inferiorem locum petentium, fine caufa eripuit atomis: Nec tamen id, cujus caufa hæc finxerat, affecutus eft: nam five omnes Atomi declinabunt, nullæ unquam cohærefcent; five aliæ declinabant, aliæ fuo motu re&e ferentur: primum erit hoc quafi provincias Atomis dare, qua recte, que oblique ferantur." For he fays that the atoms decline, without alleging any reafon for their declination, than which nothing is more unbecoming of a natural philofopher. And without any reafon likewife he has taken from the atoms that natural motion of all weights, that tend in a direct line to a lower place. Nor after all has he gained the point, for the fake of which he invented all this; for either all the atoms will decline, none will ever stick together; or fome will decline while others move, as they naturally ought in a right line. And this is, in a manner, to prefcribe to atoms their proper offices, and to enjoin fome to defcend in a direct line, others obliquely. Lucretius himself is aware of this difficulty, v. 216. where he is fo far from folving it, that he rather yields and fubmits to its strength. But, v. 240. he ftarts another difficulty, by the help of former or like the cuttle-fish, throws out clouds of darknefs and obfcurity, that it may be more difficult to find and take him. For he afferts, that without this declination of the feeds, no reafon can be given for the freedom of will which we perceive in all animals. But the fame Cicero in the first book of the Nature of the Gods, an fwers him thus: "Hoc perfæpe facitis, Epicurei, ut cum aliquid non verfimile dicatis, & reprehenfionem effugere velitis; efferatis aliquid quod omnino ne fieri poffit: at fatius fuerit illud ipfun, de quo ambigebatur, concedere, quam tam impudenter refiftere; velit Epicurus, cum videret, f Atomi ferrentur in locum inferiorem fuopte pondere, nihil fore in noftra poteftate, quod effet, earum motus certus & neceffarius: invenit quo modo neceffitatem effugeret, quod viz. Democritum fugerat: Ait Atomum, cum pondere & gravitate directo deorfum feratur, declinare paulum. Hoc dicere turpius eft, quam illud, quod vult, non poffe defendere." The custom of you Epicureans is this; when you affert any thing that is improbable to be true, and are defirous to avoid reprehenfion, you advance fomething that is wholly impoffible to be done; but you would act more ingenuously, if you granted the matter in doubt, rather than infifted fo obftinately on your own opinions, like Epicurus, who, when he faw that if the atoms were moved downwards by their own weight, nothing would be in our power, becaufe their motion would be certain and neceflary, found a way which Democritus never thought of, to avoid this neceflity; and said, that an atom, though by its own weight and heaviness it be carried directly downwards, yet declines a little. To say this is more weak and difhonourable than not being able to make good what he afferted. And in his book, De Fato, Cicero likewife fays: "Epicurus uno tempore, res duas fufcipit inenodabiles; unam, ut fine caufa fiat aliquid, ex quo exiftet, ut de nihilo quippiam fiat; quod nec ipfi, nec cuiquam Phyfico placet; alteram, ut cum duo Indi. vidua per Inanitatem ferantur, alterum è regione moveatur, alterum declinet." Epicurus takes upon him at once to make good two things, for either of which no reason can be given one, that any thing can be done without a caufe; from whence it will follow, that any thing can be made of nothing; which neither himself nor any natural philofopher will allow : the other, that when two indivifible bodies are moved through the void, one of them should defcend in a straight line, the other by declination. And, in the fame book he goes yet farther; and fays, " Quæ ergo nova caufa in natura eft, quæ declinat Atomum? aut num fortiuntur inter fe, quæ declinet, que non ? aut car minimo declinet inter vallo, majore non? aut cur declinet uno Minimo, non declinet duobus aut tribus? Optare hoc quidem eft, non difputare; nam neque extrinfecus impulfam Atomum loco moveri & declinare dicit, neque in illo Inani, per quod feratur Atomus, quidquam fuiffe caufæ, cur ea non è regione ferretur, nec in ipfa Atomo mu. tationis aliquid factum eft, quamobrem naturalem fui ponderis motum non teneret. Ita cum attuliffet Epicurus nullam caufam, quæ iftam Declinationem efficeret, tamen aliquid fibi dicere videtur, quam id dicat, quod omnium mentes afpernentur & refpuant What new caufe is there then in nature that can make an atom decline? Or have they caft lots among themselves which fhall de cline, and which not? Or why does an atom decline the leaft interval of space and not a greater? Or, why does it decline one leaft, and not two or three? This is to choose what he will fay, not to difpute: for he neither fays, that an atom declines in its motion, by reafon of any outward impulfe, nor that in the void through which the atom is moved, there is any caufe why it does not defcend in a direct line; nor, laftly, that any change is made in the atom itself that may oblige it not to keep and obferve the natural motion of its own i weight. Thus, though Epicurus alleges no cause of that declination, yet he feems to himself to fay fomething, even when he fays that which the understanding and reafon of all men defpife and reject. And thus Cicero has laid waste the gardens of Epicurus, and overthrown all that philofophy that attacked even Providence itself. But Lucretius is more fuccef-ful in that long difputation, from v. 319. to v. 547. concerning the variety of the figures of his atoms: and likewife in that of the feeds of different figures that enter into the contexture of every compound body, which begins at v. 547. and ends at 683. He alfo adorns his arguments with fables properly in troduced and applied, and supports his affertions with feveral strong and convincing reasons. Nor will any adverfary of the Epicurean philofophy ever be able to evade thofe arguments, by which, from v. 684. to v 988. he demonftrates, that his atoms are void of colour. fmell, heat, in a word, of every quality, and of all manner of fenfe. I confefs he does not rightly explain the origin of fenfe, but he pr. ves, that the fenfe of animals is not due to fenfible feeds, which was his chief defign in this book, with a fharpnels of wit and ftrength of judgment, even worthy of Lucretius himself. At length, from v. 89. to v. 1059. he builds 1 innumerable worlds: and this too might have been granted, if he had affigued any proper archited for fo great a work. "Sed quis credit ex Atomorum Concurfione fortuita hujus Mundi pulcherrimum ornatum effe perfectum? An cummachinatione quadam aliquid moveri videmus, ut Sphæram, ut Horas, ut alia permulta, non dubi. tamus quin fint opera illa rationis? Cum autem impetum Cæli cum admirabili celeritate moveri, vertique videamus, conftantiffime conficientem viciffitudines anniversarias cum fumma falute & converfatione rerum omnium, dubitamus quin ea non folum ratione fiant, fed etiam excellenti qua. dam divinaque ratione? Quod fi Mundos efficere poteft Concurfus Atomorum, cur Porticum, cur Templum, cur Domum non poteft, quæ funt mi. nus operofa, & multo quidem faciliora." Cicero, de Nat. Deor lib. 2. Who can believe that this most beautiful frame of the world was produced and perfected by a fortuitous concourfe of atoms? When we fee any thing move, as it were by att and kill, as the spheres, the seasons, and many other things, do we doubt whether they are the works of reafon? When we fee with what won derful celerity the fun is moved and whirled around, and how he causes the annual changes and viciflitudes to the utmoft benefit and prefervation of all things, do we doubt that all these things are not the work of reafon, nay, of an excellent and divine reafon too? And if a concourfe of atoms can make worlds, why can it not make a portico, a temple, or a house, which requires lefs skill and labour, and are much more easy to make? Thu Cicero, that most grateful champion of Providence. Laftly, from v. 1065. to the end of this bock, the reader may behold innumerable worlds born daily, and dying every day, and blefs his own good fortune, that he remains fafe and unhurt in the midst of fo many and fo great ruins and de vattations. Meanwhile, he cannot but faule to fee fome infant fucking worlds, and others grown feeble and doddered with age, now dying with hunger, now choked up with fat. For nothing a more certain, than that Lucretius always lola himself when he falls foul upon Providence. PREFACE TO THE READER. THIS is that book of Lucretius, which, above all the reft, ought to be read with moft judgment and difcretion. For, fince it is in this that the poet endeavours to prove the foul to be of a corporeal nature, it may fail out that fome will too credulously yield themfelves up to his arguments; while others, periuaded that fuch a doctrine, right or wrong, ought to be condemned without mercy, will voluntarily deprive themselves of reading ta excellent a book. Left this fhould happen, it will not be amifs to put them in mind that many of the ancients were of opinion, that fpirits are to be reckoned in the number of corporeal things. A mong thofe was not only Porphyrius, in his admrable II gayμaréia wigions but Plotinus and Jan blichus, and of us Chrithaus, Tertullian, Bal and Augustin, not to mention the more modera. Now, if thefe ancients were not condemned following this belief concerning ipirits, I think there is no reason that we thould be fo much cffended at Lucretins's opinion of corporeal fouls. Hitherto is nothing but what you may read with out being fcandalized at it. And would to God Lucretius had stopped here: For others have af ferted the immortality of the foul, which, never- | theless, they believed to be of the fame nature with fpirits; however, they reserved to it its own right, or what the bounty of God has bestowed upon it. But our author, when he has shown the foul of a man to be a corporeal substance, ftrenuorly and obftinately afferts, that it is impoffible but that it must likewife be fubject to death and diffolution; and that the generality of men being aftonished, caft down, and overawed by the tyranny of religion, are horribly mistaken, to believe, that Eternas nigra pænas in morte timendum. Lucret. they have any reason to dread eternal torments after death. Thus you fee the rocks and fhelves that you ought to avoid and fly from and you will do well to compare this doctrine of the Epicurean fect with the arguments of the Platohifts, who afferted the immortality of the foul: but much better, if laying afide the disputations and controverfies of this wavering and uncertain philofophy, you apply yourfelf directly to him, who has demonstrated, that the Parent and Father of all things is GOD OF THE LIVING, BUT NOT OF THE DEAD. Another thing, reader, you ought continually to have before your eyes, which is this: Be our fouls fpiritual, or if you will, corporeal yet we ought not much to trouble our heads about thefe arguments of Lucretius, Since being Christians, as we are, we verily and unfeignedly believe, that the time will come that this brute and fenfelefs mafs of the body, which the foul now informs and guides, when after a courfe of years it is turned into corruption and duft, and then scattered and difperfed away, will, nevertheless, at length unite again; and being thus collected and got together out of water, air, and earth, will remain and perlevere for an endlefs fucceffion of age. Let Lucretius then prove, if he will, the nature of the foul to be corporeal, and therefore liable to death; he will ad ance nothing that will ftartle a true Chriftian; fince we believe the future refurrection and immortality of the body, upon furer grounds than any arguments of vulgar phyfiology, and of chemistry itfelf (for that wonderful experiment, of which Quercetanus and others make mention, concludes nothing for the refurrection of the body), though they are equally, nay, more difficult to prove and believe Let me add one thing more. The treatife of Tertullian, which is intituled De Anima, will aflift you very much in the right underlanding of this book: if you read it, ou will perufe the moft excellent work of that great man. conclude, If in this book, or in any other of my writings, the falfe opinions of Lucretius have dropped from me, either through haste or inadvertency, I defire it may be remembered that I am the actor, not the poet; and that I here unfay and recant all things of that nature which may have flipped from me by either of thofe means. Nor, indeed, my courfe of life fuch, that when my foul comes to be feparated from my body, I fhould willingly expect that end which nature has ordained for the brute animals that perish. Farewell. TANAQUIL FABER. Το BOOK III. THE ARGUMENT. THE poet flatters himfelf, that, in the two former books, he has fully and rightly explained the nature, and the properties of his atoms. In the four remaining books, he applies himself very attentively to defcribe the effects which those atoms produce. And first, as he had reafon to do, he brings upon the ftage the parts of the mind, and of the foul: And this is the fubject of the difputation of all his book, which he begins, I. With the praife of Epicarus, whom, from ver. 1. to ver. 92, he extols for having been the first who taught, that this world, and all things in it, were not made by the Deity, but by a fortuitous concourfe of atoms; and for delivering, by that doctrine, the minds of men from the fear of the gods, of death, and of punishments after death. II. Having by way of preface, faid this of Epicurus, he teaches, from ver. 92. to ver. 133, that the mind and the foul are a part of man, in like manner as the feet, the hands, the arms, the head and the other members; and not a vital habit of the whole body, or an accord and confent of all the parts of the body, which fome of the ancient philofophers called harmony. But that he may difpute diftin&ly, and without confufion, because he ufes promifcuoufly the words mind and foul, he teaches, III. from ver. 133. to ver. 160. that the mind and the foul are but one thing; but that the mind is the chief part, and refides in the heart, becaufe fear, joy, and all the other paffions, which obey and depend on the mind, discover themselves there, while the foul, in which the locomotive faculty is folely placed, being diffufed through the whole body, is moved as the mind pleafes. IV. Then, from ver. 161. to 177, he endeavours to demonstrate, that the nature of the mind and ful is corporeal, because the mind touches the foul, and moves it, and the foul touches the body: but where there is no body there can be no touch. V. From ver. 178. to 307, he teaches, that this corporeal mind is compofed of atoms extremely fubtle, minute, and round. And particularly that this mind confifts of heat, wind, or vapour, and air, and of another thing, which confifting of the feeds the oft fubtle, the moft minute, and the moft fubject to motion, is the principal and original caule of TRANS. II. fenfe. But how the heat, the wind, the air, and this fourth, nameless thing, are mingled, or what proportion of each makes up the compofition, he ingenuoufly confeffes he cannot tell. VI. From ver 308. to 331, he afferts that the foul and body are fo united together, that they cannot be feparated without the deftruction of both of them. And, VII. from ver. 333. to 353, he afferts, that not only the mind, but the body too has perception, or rather the whole animal, compofed of body and foul. VIII. After this, from ver. 353. to 396, he refutes the opinion of Democritus, who taught that the refpective parts of the foul are fitted and joined to the respective parts of the body. And having affirmed before that the mind is the most excellent part of the whole compound, he now farther afferts, that the life and prefervation of the animal depends more on the mind than on the foul. IX. From ver. 396. to 809, he endeavours to prove, by fix and twenty arguments, that minds and fouls are born with the bodies, and die with them, and, by the way, derides the tranfmigration of Pythagoras. X. In the next place, from ver. 810. to 836, he teaches, that death is nothing, be cause the foul, being mortal, has nothing to fear after death; nay, that if it be granted that the foul is immortal, as Plato held, yet death ftill is nothing, fince the feparated foul would not remember that she had ever been before. XI. Then to ver. 874, he laughs at the vain anxiety of men concerning their fepulture and thence, to ver. 915, proves that death is not an ill, because the dead want not thofe good things which the living enjoy, but are exempted from those calamities which afflict and torment us wretches that are alive. XII. That even life itself is not a thing very defirable, because it has nothing new to give us, but always the fame maukish pleasures, till at length we lothe them, to ver. 976. XIII. But left the fables, which the poets feign of hell and of future punishments, fhould fright us, he explains those fables, and fhows, that they are ve rified upon earth; that we feel thofe torments while we are living, and have no reason to dread them after we are dead, to ver. 1026. XIV. Lastly, To the end of this book, he puts us in mind, that it is both foolish and abfurd to bemoan ourfeives that we muft die, fince the wifeft of men, and the most potent princes and emperors. have been forced to submit to the inevitable power of death. And he teaches, that men lead unquiet and anxious lives, because they avoid the thoughts and contemplation of death, and are foolishly fond of that life which they must one day lofe, which can supply them with no new delights, and is exposed to innumerable dangers and afflictions. And that, after all, by the longest life to which they can attain, they fave not one moment from the length of death, which is as much eternal to them who die to-day, as to thofe who died many ages ago. THEE who haft light from 'midft thick darknefs | By whofe one fingle force to curious eyes, brought, And firft life's benefits and pleasures taught; thee We all our golden fentences derive; 10 20 For when I hear thy mighty reasons prove, All naked and expos'd whole nature lies. Since then I've taught what feeds of bodies are, And how they move, what diff'rent shapes they wear, [die, And how from thefe, all beings first may spring: 30 And, all the mask pull'd off, fhow what they be |